A power conditioner provided in the consumer converts the power acquired by power generation of a power-generator such as a photovoltaic cell (PV) and/or a discharge of a storage battery to an alternating current, and outputs the alternating current to the load and a power system.
Most of such a power conditioner can perform an “independent operation” that supplies the power acquired by the power generation of the power-generator and/or the discharge of the storage battery to the load, without receiving any supply of the power from the power system. Through such an independent operation, also during the power outage, the power can be supplied to the load.
Also, recently, interests in the power saving have increased in view of the global environmental protection, and power management systems such as HEMS (Home Energy Management System) for performing the power management on a house basis, and BEMS (Building Energy Management System) for performing the power management on a building basis are attracting attention.
In such a power management system, a control device is provided in the consumer, which controls power supply means (such as a power-generator, a storage battery, and a power conditioner) and the load.
Also, in order to realize further power savings by using such a control device, introducing an automatic control technique that determines an operation schedule of the load and controls the load in accordance with the operation schedule is proposed (for example, see PTL 1).